Friday, May 1, 2009

Victory for whales

This is an exciting time for our work protecting whales and other marine mammals. The Marine Sanctuaries Campaign has been working as a joint partnership between Seaflow and Pacific Environment for the past 5 months. We have now received our formal notice from the Attorney General allowing us to fully integrate into Pacific Environment. As you may have seen following the Salazar Hearing in San Francisco to voice public opinion on off-shore drilling, this partnership is allowing us greater resources and networks to carry forward our goal of protecting whales and other marine wildlife from human-made noise. We will continue our work to advance adequate protections for California's marine sanctuaries, organizing Vessel Watch trips to experience first-hand the impacts of human-made noise to whales and other sea dwellers, securing safeguards for sea mammals from human-made noise around the world, and offering opportunities to come together locally as a community to make a difference.Lately, we are seeing some tremendous victories for whales!This past Friday, we received great news for one very vulnerable population of whales! Following insistent pressure from Pacific Environment and our partners, Sakhalin Energy - a consortium led by Gazprom and Shell - agreed to suspend seismic testing, an extreme form of human-made noise, planned for this summer off Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. This is a crucial feeding area for the critically endangered Western Gray Whale. With only 25 breeding females remaining, the Western Gray Whales would have faced tremendous peril if seismic testing commenced this summer. Experts believe the loss of just one breeding female would likely mean extinction for these whales. To learn more about this victory, please click here.The week before, we won another impressive reprieve for marine mammals in the Arctic. Pacific Environment and our partners won a lawsuit that canceled the Bush Administration's 5-year plan for offshore oil drilling!Thank you for your continued support!Jackie Dragon Marine Sanctuaries